In hindsight, Reflections In A Golden Eye (1967) might mark a type of penance for director John Huston. It certainly represents a shift in his cinematic oeuvre. Huston, of legendary macho fame, had cemented his reputation with virile opuses: Treasure of the Sierre Madre (1948), The Red Badge of Courage (1951), African Queen (1951), Moby Dick (1956), Roots of Heaven (1958), and The Bible (1966). Yet, Huston also was occasionally drawn to sensitive or eccentric material. Both The Asphalt Jungle (1950) and Beat the Devil (1953) became cult hits. Huston went from working with John Wayne in Barbarian and the Geisha ( 1958) to Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe, and Montgomery Clift in The Misfits (1961).
Having worked well with Clift in The Misfits, Huston cast the actor in the title role of his dream project: Freud (1962). Unfortunately, that production was plagued by a pedestrian script and the tension that resulted when Huston walked in on Clift bedding a male reporter. It proved the wrong film for Huston to vent his homophobia.
Huston aggressively acted out his homosexual repulsion on Clift throughout the production, and the hypersensitive actor responded with a professional and nervous breakdown. A post-production lawsuit rendered Clift uninsurable for four years.
Clift’s friend and one-time co-star Elizabeth Taylor came to his rescue again (she had literally saved his life in a car accident during the making of 1957’s Raintree County), ensuring him for the part of Major Weldon Penderton in Reflections in a Golden Eye. Tragically, the insurance company and Huston demanded Clift do another film first to prove his capability. The result was the wretched The Defector (1966). Clift, already in extremely fragile state, would not accept a stunt double and put himself through rigorous physical demands, which literally contributed to his death shortly after filming.
On the surface, the self-loathing latent homosexual Maj. Weldon would seem to have been ideally suited for Clift. However, both Freud and The Defector reveal a glassy-eyed actor literally on the verge of self-implosion.
In the wake of Clift’s premature death, Huston cast the actor’s one-time rival method actor, Marlon Brando, in the deceased’s intended role. Brando, who has rightly been called one of the greatest actors in cinema, delivers a very strong performance, as does Taylor and Brian Keith.
Reflections In A Golden Eye is based on Carson McCullers’ popular 1941 novel and familiarity with the literary source undoubtedly makes the film more accessible.
Huston’s direction of Reflections is Flannery O’Connor-like: impressionistic language combined with objective, clear-eyed view of darker themes and people within an exquisitely austere Continue reading BEAUTIFUL FILMS: JOHN HUSTON’S REFLECTIONS IN A GOLDEN EYE (1967)
Although never given a role which proved her actor’s mettle, Steele stood apart from cinematic “scream queens” in using her physicality to both seduce and frighten audiences, perhaps best summarized in Bava’s extreme closeup of her acupunctured face during an erotic resurrection, which is quite possibly the most pronounced scene of its kind.
) (which has different dubbing and Les Baxter’s vastly inferior score) features an interview with Steele, commentary from Bava biographer Tim Lucas, and trailers.